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> To be able to enter into new long term agreements, we must respect existing agreements. That is a matter of trust, it's not an obligation for the state. We a

> To be able to enter into new long term agreements, we must respect existing agreements. That is a matter of trust, it's not an obligation for the state. We are a society of people, and for us to perpetuate civil society, wrongs must be corrected, yes? Why is the respect for debt more important than the respect for humanity? > There is no need for me to consider the actions of others I had no control over in order to act morally. What does this have to do with anything? Slavery is not a matter of "if you don't like it, don't do it", it was a positive right protected and enforced through the state's monopoly on violence. That's what law is. Likewise with the legacies of slavery. It's not mere morality, it's existential to civil society. If the state passes legislation to fund reparations based on past harm, that is no different to any other appropriations spending. And yes, the choice to pass such legislation is largely based on morality since there was no prior legal obligation to do so... but so was not absolving themselves of that slave-owner debt. The UK Parliament is sovereign, it could have willed away that debt with a simple majority, but it chose not to for 200 years. That too is a decision based on morality, and a telling one: that humanity is less important than debts being paid. > Nations are not individuals. Nations are not literally individuals, but state personhood is a thing, akin to corporate personhood. I'm not entirely sure what your point is here. > Similarly, individuals do not inherit debt. You're doing the whole "don't therefore can't" thing again. I have a vague recollection of debt inheritance in history's past. 'We don't do that because we don't do that' is not an argument.

typewithrhythm 1y ago
You cannot will away an old debt without consequence because a current entity owns it, now, in the present. This is not a morality based decision. You are again trying to conflate abstractions that pertain to individuals and ones that pertain to nations. There is not a real concept of trust like between individuals, only a financial cost for not honouring debts. I also don't understand why you think there is a direct relationship between the debts and what they were originally created for... You clearly do not understand the concept of state or corporate personhood if you are trying to extend individual morality to apply. Civil society is also a strange direction to go in, from trying to make the relationship to debts. To engage, the term only makes sense as a way for current people to interact, a "wrong" in context requires both a specific victim and an offender... It cannot be applied to historical actions as it gives no information to how current people should interact. I would go as far as saying reparations for one arbitrarily chosen historic injustice undermines civil society; as it's impossible to claim one point in history is more valid than another, making any attempt a deeply unfair exercise.
- Defletter 1y ago
  > You cannot will away an old debt without consequence because a current entity owns it, now, in the present. You cannot do ANYTHING without consequence, why would that be a criterion for anything? And ownership is a legal fiction, hence why Russia was able to seize all those passenger planes, likewise with Western nations seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs. Ownership, particularly of intangible things like debt, is not some universal truth or force of nature like gravity: it's an emergent property of the system we have set up. One of the reasons why the UK is (or was) the centre of finance was because of its robust legal system that puts an extreme emphasis on property rights. And that's a deliberate decision. The idea that such a decision is amoral is ridiculous. > There is not a real concept of trust like between individuals Yes, there absolutely is? In fact, it is the currency of international relations. International law isn't even really a thing: international law is domestic law; it only exists to the extent that a country respects the Rule of Law. It's why certain countries that blatantly violate international law face no legal consequence. It's why the response to the violation of international law are sanctions, not a higher courts overruling them: there is no higher court. And even when there are hypothetical higher courts, like the ECJ, again it only works so far as the member state is willing to play along, which is partly why Hungary is in such hot water with the EU. I'd even go so far as to say that nations rely on trust more than people do. The fact that you don't think trust even a concept with nations is wild and makes me doubt whether you understand the concept of international relations at all. And all this is also true within a nation: if you cannot trust your state institutions, those institutions are worthless. --- I do not think it is worth conversing further since this is clearly unproductive.
  - typewithrhythm 1y ago
    Your fundamental problem is you are taking ideas that apply to individuals and are trying to apply them to abstract groups. You are doing it again with the idea of trust. Trust between nations is a concept that exists, but it's not the same thing as trust between individuals. Trust inside a state is even more interesting, how can I possibly trust a state that arbitrarily redistributes money based on one topical historic injustice? Either it should be consistent and analyse all lineages for all wrongs, or accept that it's only a structure for allowing current people to interact civilly. You have taken the idea that reparations are right, and are now trying to draw a line between reparations and other abstract concepts that are already accepted to try to be an advocate. The flaw is that moral arguments that apply to individuals do not apply to nations, without some solid reasoning you have not made. So you cannot extend the idea that an individual should make good some injury to reparations.

typewithrhythm 1y ago

You cannot will away an old debt without consequence because a current entity owns it, now, in the present. This is not a morality based decision. You are again trying to conflate abstractions that pertain to individuals and ones that pertain to nations. There is not a real concept of trust like between individuals, only a financial cost for not honouring debts. I also don't understand why you think there is a direct relationship between the debts and what they were originally created for... You clearly do not understand the concept of state or corporate personhood if you are trying to extend individual morality to apply. Civil society is also a strange direction to go in, from trying to make the relationship to debts. To engage, the term only makes sense as a way for current people to interact, a "wrong" in context requires both a specific victim and an offender... It cannot be applied to historical actions as it gives no information to how current people should interact. I would go as far as saying reparations for one arbitrarily chosen historic injustice undermines civil society; as it's impossible to claim one point in history is more valid than another, making any attempt a deeply unfair exercise.

Defletter 1y ago
> You cannot will away an old debt without consequence because a current entity owns it, now, in the present. You cannot do ANYTHING without consequence, why would that be a criterion for anything? And ownership is a legal fiction, hence why Russia was able to seize all those passenger planes, likewise with Western nations seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs. Ownership, particularly of intangible things like debt, is not some universal truth or force of nature like gravity: it's an emergent property of the system we have set up. One of the reasons why the UK is (or was) the centre of finance was because of its robust legal system that puts an extreme emphasis on property rights. And that's a deliberate decision. The idea that such a decision is amoral is ridiculous. > There is not a real concept of trust like between individuals Yes, there absolutely is? In fact, it is the currency of international relations. International law isn't even really a thing: international law is domestic law; it only exists to the extent that a country respects the Rule of Law. It's why certain countries that blatantly violate international law face no legal consequence. It's why the response to the violation of international law are sanctions, not a higher courts overruling them: there is no higher court. And even when there are hypothetical higher courts, like the ECJ, again it only works so far as the member state is willing to play along, which is partly why Hungary is in such hot water with the EU. I'd even go so far as to say that nations rely on trust more than people do. The fact that you don't think trust even a concept with nations is wild and makes me doubt whether you understand the concept of international relations at all. And all this is also true within a nation: if you cannot trust your state institutions, those institutions are worthless. --- I do not think it is worth conversing further since this is clearly unproductive.
- typewithrhythm 1y ago
  Your fundamental problem is you are taking ideas that apply to individuals and are trying to apply them to abstract groups. You are doing it again with the idea of trust. Trust between nations is a concept that exists, but it's not the same thing as trust between individuals. Trust inside a state is even more interesting, how can I possibly trust a state that arbitrarily redistributes money based on one topical historic injustice? Either it should be consistent and analyse all lineages for all wrongs, or accept that it's only a structure for allowing current people to interact civilly. You have taken the idea that reparations are right, and are now trying to draw a line between reparations and other abstract concepts that are already accepted to try to be an advocate. The flaw is that moral arguments that apply to individuals do not apply to nations, without some solid reasoning you have not made. So you cannot extend the idea that an individual should make good some injury to reparations.